Dedication To Duty
by badly-knitted
Summary: Dee and Ryo had very personal reasons for choosing careers in law enforcement. Set after Like Like Love, but references scenes from throughout the manga.


**Title:** Dedication To Duty

 **Fandom:** FAKE

 **Characters:** Dee, Ryo, Jess, Mother.

 **Rating:** PG

 **Setting:** After Like Like Love, but references scenes from throughout the manga.

 **Summary:** Dee and Ryo had very personal reasons for choosing careers in law enforcement.

 **Word Count:** 929

 **Written For:** My own prompt 'FAKE, Dee/Ryo, As cops they'll never be rich, but they're not doing it for the money,' at fic_promptly.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.

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One thing's for sure, they're never going to be rich, not unless they win the lottery or something. Detectives make more than the guys on the beat, but their wages are still a joke considering the long hours and the danger involved.

Then again, neither Dee nor Ryo chose their career for the money, their reasons were far more personal, and Ryo would like to think more noble too, though perhaps there's a degree of selfishness involved in his case.

Dee chose to become a cop as a way to honor the memory of the man who'd saved his life when he was only a few days old. Jess had still been a beat cop back when he'd discovered a baby boy abandoned in an alley and had taken him to a nearby orphanage. He could have just walked away then without a backward glance, but he hadn't. Instead, he'd visited every day and taken on the role of surrogate father to the growing boy.

Even after Jess had taken a wrong turn in life, selling information to the Mob, he hadn't turned his back on Dee, and with his last breath he'd urged the boy, now a teenager, to live his life as honestly as he could. Dee had promised the dying man that he would, and a matter of hours later, had told Mother Maria Lane, the Catholic nun who had raised him, of his decision to become a cop.

Only Dee was determined that he wasn't going to make the same mistakes Jess had. He was going to be the right kind of cop, an honest one, and make both Jess and Mother proud of him. So far he'd more than kept his word, and he'd made a name for himself by becoming one of the youngest officers on the force to make detective.

Ryo's reasons for his career choice were perhaps a little less clear cut. He'd had no interest in police work growing up, didn't know anyone on the force, and if anything, probably expected to follow in his parents' footsteps, dealing in antiquities.

But when he was eighteen, before he'd even graduated high school, his life was turned upside down when his parents were gunned down while driving home from the airport for the Christmas holidays. Just like that, Ryo was an orphan, and the police were saying that his parents had been smuggling drugs.

It wasn't true, couldn't be true; Ryo's mother and father had never touched drugs and certainly wouldn't have dealt in them, but a large quantity of cocaine had been found in their car and that was enough for the police to put the blame for their deaths squarely on their supposed illegal activities.

It wasn't right, but Ryo had no way to prove otherwise and had to listen to his own relatives condemning his parents, saying they'd got what they deserved. As if that wasn't bad enough, people had started muttering about how the apple didn't fall far from the tree and the dead couple's son was probably as much of a criminal as they had been. It was humiliating, everyone believed the worst, including the police, and Ryo could only see one possible way to clear his family's name, and his own. He'd prove them all wrong by becoming a cop and finding out the truth about why his parents were killed and who was responsible.

He'd even succeeded in his goal, although the answers hadn't made him feel any better at the time. It had been a simple mistake; his parents had picked up the wrong package at the airport, a consignment of drugs, and because of that, they'd been mistaken for the couple who should have collected the package, and been murdered.

Now those responsible were all dead, but not by Ryo's hand. He'd never crossed that line, despite the almost overwhelming need to destroy the man who'd taken from him the people he loved the most. When it came right down to it, Ryo Maclean was no cold-blooded killer. At the time he'd felt ashamed that he couldn't avenge his parents' deaths, but had he done so, that single act would have destroyed his life, as well as the life of his adopted son. Revenge solves nothing.

Yet despite everything he's been through in his search for the truth, Ryo doesn't regret choosing a career in law enforcement. It's a stressful, dangerous job, he sees the worst things that people can do to each other, on a daily basis, but he wouldn't trade this life for any other. He loves what he does, loves making a difference, protecting the public, and catching the bad guys.

Dee loves it too, although he could stand for there to be less paperwork involved. But he supposes there are downsides to every job. There are perks too, like working alongside the man he loves, two dedicated police detectives, standing tall against the worst the scum of the city can throw at them. It makes their job sound almost romantic.

So, although they'll never be rich, they're doing okay, and now they're living together, they have a little less money going out and can put some aside for their future. Saving money is something Dee has learned from Ryo, and there's a lot to be said for it, especially when it means they can treat themselves to an occasional vacation far away from the city.

For a couple of honest New York cops, they have a pretty good life. What more could they want than what they already have?

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The End


End file.
